Unqualified Offerings

Larison and Sully are debating attitudes. Sully:
Obviously the argument that the Tehran junta is not going away is a legitimate area of debate. But there is a glee with which the Leveretts write about this that I find somewhat callous given the suffering and deaths and torture of so many young lovers of freedom in [...]

Novelist and conservative editorialist Mark Helprin writes a column on supposed opportunities for peace between Israel and the Palestinians – or at least, the Palestinian Authority – that earns praise from Andrew Sullivan I find hard to justify. I see at least three things wrong with it:
1. Helprin appears not to have talked to many [...]

Remember those drawdowns of US troops in Iraq our rulers earnestly hoped to commence earlier this year? Troop levels are back up to 140,000. Past history suggests they’ll be back up to their usual 150K level by the end of the year. We’ll see.
Remember, all announcements of the form “We expect to begin substantially reducing [...]

because the Iraqi power grid is not doing so well. Tim Lambert glosses the IEEE Spectrum report on the failing Quds generating station. MNF-Iraq announced the project to upgrade the facility back in July 2005 – it turned out to be one more instance of RSN Syndrome.
Glenn Reynolds clutches at a bit of prose from [...]

Gosh, John Bolton forgot that he answered official questions regarding the Burning Plame case when responding to the Senate committee about his nomination to the UN ambassadorship.
Meanwhile, a few days ago, retired General Keane told a luncheon that the US has “killed or captured” 50,000 Iraqi insurgents in toto. I am pleased to report that [...]

I just read the transcript of Bush’s speech over at Balloon Juice. In general, it is as devoid of genuine news as cynics predicted – if you’ve ever read a comment thread at Winds of Change, you’ve read the speech. (We kid because we, um, are kidders.) Hell, much of it sounds like it was [...]

RSN Syndrome strikes again. I’m pretty sure the announcement last month that the Pentagon was pretty sure it could probably start reducing troop counts by some substantial number maybe next year was touted as “Good News from Iraq” in at least some quarters. Apparently those statements are already inoperative.
There’s always suspicion among anti-interventionists that the [...]

of RSN Syndrome. The New York Times reports that senior military officials say they might be able to start significantly reducing troop levels in Iraq starting next year. If all goes well. And such. Joyner sees the article through “good news” glasses and tries to explain how the major broadcast and print media missed it. [...]

First week of the month is always hard on blogging and this month is worse than most. But here’s some stray stuff of note:
John Scalzi’s Ten Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time. Includes A Muppet Christmas with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Christmas with the Nuge and Ayn Rand’s A Selfish Christmas among others.
A “Good News” letter [...]

This week’s Bad Timing Award goes to John Keegan, whose sunny interview with Donald Rumsfeld in the Daily Telegraph ran the day after news broke of the alarming CIA estimate endorsed by Rumsfeld’s man-on-the-scene, Paul Bremer. Keegan’s article is premised on the theory that if you really want to know what’s going on somewhere, find [...]